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Innovative packaging propels jet fuel test kit performance

Desiccant-lined plastic vials improve packaging efficiencies and user convenience.

Cartons now contain 8 tubes with 10 capsule detectors per tube, a packaging configuration made possible by using a desiccant liner instead of a sachet in each tube.
Cartons now contain 8 tubes with 10 capsule detectors per tube, a packaging configuration made possible by using a desiccant liner instead of a sachet in each tube.

B.H. Brawn & Co., Ltd, Wellingborough, Northants, UK, has expertise in the manufacture of aviation supplies and a range of plastic products and components. One of Brawn’s products is the company’s long-established and internationally used Shell Water Detector, designed to determine the presence of dispersed free water in aviation fuel that cannot be detected by visual inspection.

Free water can lead to ice formation, causing filter blockage and consequent engine failure. It also can result in microbial growth in fuel tanks, causing fuel spoilage and corrosion damage. The Shell Water Detector is a crucial tool. It is used to undertake more than 13 million tests annually on Jet A1 fuels around the world.

Improving on success
Even a good, well-established product can get better with improved packaging. Baltimore Innovations are experts in humidity and moisture control and specialize in incorporating desiccants into protective packaging. For more than a decade, the company had been supplying Brawn with small 0.5-g silica gel desiccant sachets that were inserted at the end of the Shell Water Detector aluminum tube vials. Baltimore Innovations recognized an opportunity to enhance the performance of the Brawn Shell Water Detector device with the collaboration of packaging solutions gurus at CSP Technologies, Inc. The proposed idea was to develop a desiccant-lined plastic vial that would eliminate the need for sachet insertion.

Brawn considered the idea of a built-in desiccant lining and decided it had potential. At that point, CSP Technologies and Baltimore Innovations went to work to develop a cost-efficient, desiccant-lined vial that could enhance product performance of the Shell Water Detector. Samples of the previously used aluminum tubes were closely examined by all three companies who jointly decided that a custom-designed plastic vial was in order. And because a sachet no longer would be needed for insertion into the vial, more space would be freed up to increase vial holding capacity from eight detector capsules to ten.

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